Managing customer relationships. The challenge of deploying scarce managerial resources

Abstract

In industrial markets many managers from marketing, technical service and production functions interact with customers. How should these managers be allocated to an evolving array of customers? This paper reports on the customer visits made by the managers of one packaging supplier. The visits of the marketing people seem related to the financial significance of the customer, whereas the technical visits are best understood by a ‘portfolio’ approach. At the same time many idiosyncratic and situational factors affect resource deployments.